Do you have a topic that is an immediate deal breaker if a manga series you were already reading suddenly featured that topic, such that you would stop reading the series (even if it was "tastefully" done)? For example: religion, rape, etc.

In Hokkaido, the far northern lands of Japan, Sugimoto survived the Russo-Japanese war of the Meiji era. Nicknamed "Sugimoto the Immortal" during the war, he now seeks the riches promised by the gold rush in hopes of saving the widowed wife of his now deceased comrade from the war. During his hunt of gold, he finds hints of a hidden stash of gold by corrupt criminals. Partnering with an Ainu girl that saves his life from the harsh climates of the north, they venture into a survival adventure to race against the criminals that seek the hidden stash.

Note: Won the 9th Manga Taisho Award in 2016. Was nominated for the 20th and 21st Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize and the 40th Kodansha Manga Awards in 2016.

Like others have mentioned, there are several instances of "coincidentally, this happened" and "conveniently, that was there." Important scenes happen very quickly, one after another. It can be tough initially to get into the story, but the series has fantastic characters, wonderful art, intense action, and hilarious comedic moments (the characters' expressions are the best). All of these wonderful aspects easily help you overlook the quick pacing. I highly recommend it, if you can stomach gratuitous violence and gore.

I wrote a long review for this manga. It kicked my butt, seriously. There is so much awesome stuff to this manga, so many aspects, and it's all done very well and in a way that all fits together. The comedy, the action, the story, the characters, the cooking, it's all great but sheesh, trying to explain it all was a challenge. Writing about it at length makes it maybe seem unfocused or too-filled, but no, it is really just that good. No wonder it got an award.

I'm really enjoying this, and don't have much to add that others haven't already said here.

I would like to point out however, that it doesn't really follow traditional manga storytelling formats or fall into predictable genres. This could be a source of frustration for those with a psychological need their stories to be linear and expected; leading to (thoroughly unwarranted) accusations of "Deus ex machina", "insults my intelligence" and "UNBELIEVABLE".However, if you're neurotypical like most of the population, you'll find all the change-up's fun, unique and enjoyable.

I read the most recent comment by a Dariush and I personally feel violated academically, and I feel that it will violate other potential readers of this manga to look at it with a poor light based only on the guided imagery this Dariush provides. And SO I will bring up some points of my own.

As a reader who is very critical of what they read and is particular about how stories function and progress, I can honestly say that ALL stories act on what this person would call "suspension of disbelief-violating mess". All stories must have happenstance events occur in order for the characters and the stories to progress, and frankly I have read a many MANY worse stories that operate with happenstance/suspension of disbelieve events that don't even make sense. But this story is not one of them.

The whole purpose of this story, as you learn in the first chapter, is that the main character is known as "Sugimoto the Immortal". Now if you go into a story wanting to have a COMPLETELY realistic setting with NO possible story-world occurrences, then after reading that the main character is referred to as Sugimoto the IMMORTAL, then you're probably going to want to stop reading after the first chapter- no, after the first few pages where the character goes through life threatening situations and then turns out looking practically okay.

So now that we've covered the fact that the main character is obviously guided by some whimsical talent of consistently managing to escape death even when all scenarios seem bleak, let's move on to the next point, shall we? Already I've debased that if you don't like mangas with borderline supernatural happenstances, or suspension of disbelief, then you should not read this, correct? But this manga is SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT.

This manga has amazing characters with personalities ranging close to a Fullmetal Alchemist level of storytelling. The world is set towards the end of the Meiji period, which I find many historical mangas do not touch on. Most historical mangas use Edo for some reason, but this manga has taken the Meiji period to next level entertaining.

The first chapter (after the first few pages) captivates you with amazing storytelling and to say that the characters don't make their own decisions to push the story forward is baloney. The story ONLY moves forward BECAUSE of the characters' decisions to travel here and there. You ever hear about "it's a small world" from people that you may not have seen for years but suddenly run into each other? Well yeah, that takes the cake for this story, but the way that the story unravels all the characters meeting doesn't make you the reader feel cheated, on the contrary, there is a comedic sense to it that ALWAYS tickles my enjoyment.

Now for the final piece I wanted to discuss based off of Diarush's accusations towards this manga, the only real plot hole. [spoiler]Why don't the convicts leave Hokkaido if they know they will be hunted? On many occasions you will find that each of the convicts have their own reasons for this. Some of them have decided to look for the gold themselves, and so they stuck around. Others managed to find jobs around the place, which as a freshly escaped convict I'm sure finding a job isn't easy and you'll stick to it when you get one. But the most important one, this is their home? They were sent to prison IN Hokkaido, so most of them GREW UP and LIVED in Hokkaido. Sure you CAN leave if you want to, but many people will find that a sense of nostalgia and belonging can outweigh wits and being smart about these things (just look at how many people give in to peer pressure on a daily basis, jeez). And we still don't know if there IS another convict not living in Hokkaido. So this plot hole isn't entirely a plot hole, is it?[spoiler] So to sum it up, this plot hole isn't even really a plot hole, is it?

Overall, the story is amazing, the art is a amazing, the characters have a depth and shallow side as well as backstories that are captivating that you don't think "Ugh, when will this flashback end?". Instead all you want is more of it! Occasionally the perspective will pan away from the main characters for a few pages, but it is only to advance the story by showing you the enemy's perspective and is quickly read through before going back to the main events.

The whole era is explored and you begin to feel a certain way about it that makes you think "Gosh, I actually learned a lot about Ainu culture by reading this!". And it's fun! It's entertaining! It's becoming one of my favorite stories yet (can't call it one of my favs yet because any story can take turns for the worst in the future), and so far things are heating up swimmingly!

At first glance, this series has everything - excellent art, awesome combination of comedic and dramatic parts, morally gray villains, SoL inserts, historical and cultural references, interesting characters, engaging plot. And well, it still has all of those, but two major problems completely ruin my enjoyment of this manga and bring the rating down by 6 or 7 points, and that is the UNBELIEVABLE amount of random coincidences that are vital to the plot coupled with impenetrable plot armor and one major self-refreshing plot hole ongoing through the series.

Nothing ever violated suspension of disbelief as hard as Golden Kamui did. Absolutely everything that happens in this manga happens only because of random chance, with minimal agency by the characters. There are 24 convicts everyone is looking for on the entire island, and yet the characters stumble upon them all the time simply by walking through a forest. Or meeting one in a hotel in a random town. Or seeing one fishing. Or rescuing a random drowning guy, who turns out to be one. (none of these are spoilers, since people in question are always revealed to be the convicts a few pages after their first appearance) And all of the convicts are apparently stupid enough to remain openly living on the island they were imprisoned on despite several groups looking to skin them (this is the major plot hole I mentioned earlier). This is mind-boggling stupidity and nobody questions it or thinks about getting away from the whole mess. Oh, and then in chapter 50 comes the 'big' reveal that is pretty much the worst coincidence of them all:

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

Asirpa, whom the MC met completely by chance, is actually the daughter of the guy who buried the treasure.

And that's in addition to all the one-in-a-million coincidences standard to this kind of stories:MC about to be

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

executed by firing squad

? He hops into a convenient bear den that just happened to be behind him.MC about to be

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tortured to death

? He's rescued in the nick of time.

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

Wolf companion

is about to be shot? Deus ex machina at the last possible moment to the rescue.MC about to be

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

backstabbed by a guy he saved

? The only possible person who can warn him in time does so at the last possible second.And so on, and so forth.

And just to finalize the plot degradation, by midway point the moral grayness of the villains gets thrown out of the window and we get

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

two completely insane serial killers in a row.

This manga insults the reader's intelligence by having RNG as the only driver of the story, and this flaw completely overshadows all the positive points I've listed in the first sentence.

This is a strange manga. It starts as a treasure hunt story, it has well acted fighting action, goes pretty in-depth in Ainu culture (though I'm not sure how accurate the research is)... and then also talks a lot about cooking. At times it feels a bit as a Blade of the Immortal in a 19th century setting (skilled warrior teaming up with a young girl - one more able and resourceful than Rin, thankfully) mixed with Dungeon Meshi (survival elements, hunting and cooking animals rather than monsters, characters make strange expressions for comedic value).

While it doesn't reach the levels of excellence of those two manga and sometimes feels as if the many elements it combines don't mesh as well as they could, it's an enjoyable title if you don't mind whole chapters dedicated to hunting and cooking in-between important story events.

UPDATE:

Well, hasn't the manga changed a bit. As the volumes go up the author focuses less and less on Ainu culture and eating strange foods and ramps the weirdness and action up to 11 instead. It's a rollercoaster of awesome bizarre events all the time with the strangest humor you can imagine. From a deranged soldier that whispers to his own mutilated ear to a gay taxidermist that wears the skins of his victims in the strangest of dresses, you can find anything here.

Once it got to this pacing it never slowed down and it's quite the ride. Probably the very best currently serialized manga at the moment.

Golden Kamui is a pretty seemless attempt to recreate the American Western genre. At first, calling ti a western seems strange. The only settings westerns are common are the eponymous American west, and occasionally in fictional settings. But, the creator of GK successfully found a place in Japanese history where the genre fits beautifully.

Think about it. The story follows a legedary ex-soldier on a quest for a hidden stache of gold that requires gunning his way through corrupt soldiers and a dangerous outlaws. To help him, a native of the region joins his quest and helps him learn to survive the rugged undeveloped natural world. The more you look at this story, the more it's clear that it is the exact definition of a Western.The onyl reason it's hard to notice is that the work on this series is so steeped in Hokkaido and the early 20th century that thinking about it as a reproduction of a foreign type of genre fiction is hard to detect. With it's historical fiction sensibilities and it's intensely Japanese setting, that makes it a deeply unique western.

I'm a sucker for novelty. This isn't the greatest manga ever made. But, it's a different take on something I thought I was comfortable with, and that's worth a round of applause.

I am not quite sold yet and his previous hokey manga may be a bit better but the scenario is fresh enough for a manga (but not for European comics) so i will wait it out for a bit. The leading "coupe" have a highly weird comedy dynamic and the series features a strange mix of quirky comedy / high octane gore. I am a born Russian btw. and recommend Akira Kurosawa´s Dersu Uzala to study up the themes of this narrative.

History of any kind is not my favorite, but there are a few manga in that genre that have stood out to me. This is definitely one of the better manga I've read, but brutal, again not my cup of tea, but an amazingly well balanced story in my opinion. Im actually excited for history..... This is strange xD.

It is like some sort of Ainu version of Otoyomegatari plus some sort of Gold Rush setting, just brilliant, I've read about the Ainu before and also about the Russo Japanese War but this manga gave some new terminology to search about to improve my knowledge.

Interesting story, educational and brutal, while tender at times, it has a strange humor regarding food xD... no wonder it is a nominee for the current Taisho Awards in 2016.